Project Veggie (a.k.a. Crazy Things I Do For My Kids)

Tag Archives: tomatillos

The monkeys and I have spent the winter mostly hibernating, eating comfort food and getting fat. But Spring is finally here! That means farmer’s market is revving up to full swing and new things are popping up every week that make me want to experiment in the kitchen.

In one of those perfect timing situations, the lovely Jenn Louis, a chef here in Portland, is releasing her new cookbook this month (in stores April 11th, woohoo!), aptly titled The Book of Greens! I was lucky enough to be eating at her restaurant, Ray, on the day the author copies landed and bought the very first copy. Booyah!

The cool thing about this book is it gives you plenty of recipes for the “normal” greens you might be used to eating but also for lots of things that maybe you haven’t heard of or have never tried or didn’t know you could eat. I always get a few mystery items in my CSA boxes and this is going to be a huge help when figuring out what to do with them. This cookbook highlight greens I didn’t know existed and it goes way beyond salads.

This is the second recipe I’ve made out of this book and both have been delicious. I love my eggs and who knew there was a way of making them that I’ve never tried? Normally shakshuka is made with a red, tomato-based sauce but I’ve never seen a green version. Think salsa verde on steroids, with the eggs gently cooked right in the sauce. I love the zing of the tomatillos, balanced with a little spice and a lot of greens. You can eat this with challah toast, or do as I did, and serve it over rice for dinner. I also ate the leftovers over hash browns (don’t judge, you know how I feel about potatoes). This was so tasty.

Green Shakshuka!

Green Shakshuka(a.k.a. Malabar Spinach Shakshuka, from The Book of Greens, by Jenn Louis)

Combine tomatillos, spinach, cilantro, and jalapeno in a food processor. Pulse until all of the ingredients are finely chopped. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and process again until the ingredients are well mixed but not fully pureed. The texture of the ingredients should be fine, not chunky. Set aside.

Green things getting ready to get chopped up. Don’t worry, I squished them all down in there.

Over medium-high heat, warm the olive oil in a 10 inch skillet. Add the onion, garlic, cumin, coriander, caraway, and turmeric and cook, stirring often, until the onion is translucent, about 4 minutes. If the garlic begins to brown, decrease the heat.

Add the tomatillo mixture, season lightly with salt, and bring the sauce to a light simmer. Cook slowly until the sauce thickens, 8-10 minutes. Crack the eggs atop the spinach-tomatillo mixture, turn the heat to low, and cover the pan to allow the eggs to cook gently and steam. Cook the eggs until the whites all set, 4-5 minutes.

Spoon into individual bowls with the eggs on top, and garlic with the cilantro springs and feta. Serve immediately with challah toast, rice or potatoes (or for a low carb option, just eat it with a spoon)!

Salsa is my favorite condiment. It goes way beyond chips for me. It goes in omelets and frittatas, it goes in salads, it lands on top of chicken and fried potatoes. It gets eggs poached in it like this. I almost always have a batch of it in my fridge. You never know when you’ll need some.

It may be the first week of fall, but the weather is still nice and farmer’s market (at least here in Oregon) still has beautiful tomatoes. All of the ingredients for this showed up in one of my weekly farm boxes and on the grill and into the fridge it went immediately. This is a great way to use up ripe tomatoes if you have a bunch. After you turn them into salsa they last for weeks. If you don’t happen to have fresh tomatoes, or if you read this in the middle of winter when there are no good ones available, just use a can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes instead. It works like a charm, and best of all, you can always have one hiding in your pantry for when the salsa monster rears its head.

This recipe is very similar to my normal, un-roasted veggie version, but kissing those veggies with a little heat and getting that char flavor in there does add more depth and oomph. Take the extra few minutes and give it a shot!

Veggies on the grill pan. You could also do them on an actual grill, or under the broiler.

Heat a grill pan (or grill, or broiler) and coat with cooking spray. Lay out all your vegetables. Let them grill until they are starting to turn black. Turn once or twice to cook on other sides. Your onion may stay in a wedge or it might fall apart. It will be fine either way. Put everything in a blender. Add seasonings, lime juice and cilantro. Blend until everything is chopped and combined. If you prefer a coarser salsa, pulse in a food processor instead of using the blender.

On the rare occasion I have leftover enchilada ingredients, my favorite thing to use them for is breakfast. If you don’t have leftovers, this sauce takes mere moments to make and will keep in the fridge for a week. Use beans, meat or veggies you might have left over or just use eggs and cheese. Either way you stack it, it’s going to be delicious! I had a bit of black beans and chicken, mixed with a dab of sour cream (my enchilada filling) so I used that in mine.

To make verde sauce: Remove husks and stems from tomatillos and put in a small saucepan. Cover with water; boil for 10 minutes or until tender. Drain and transfer to a blender with the rest of the sauce ingredients. Blend until smooth.

Homemade verde sauce. So quick and easy!

Use a knife to cut your tortilla, making 4 slices, but leaving the center uncut.

4 small slices, going from the edge toward the center, leaving about an inch in the center uncut.

Spray your ramekin with cooking spray. Fold tortilla into the ramekin in a little bowl shape (if you cut all the way through it’s no big deal, just stick it in there anyway, overlapping the pieces to fit).

Overlap the cut edges to make a little bowl shape in the ramekin.

Add a bit of veggies, meat or beans if you are using them.

Beans, meat or veggies on the bottom (if using).

Add 2-3 tablespoons of verde sauce.

I love love love this sauce.

Break 1-2 eggs into the ramekin on top of the sauce.

Add eggs. Depending on the size of your ramekin and how much veggies you added, you may be able to fit two eggs in here.

Sprinkle with queso fresco and a dash of salt & pepper. Bake for 15 minutes, or until eggs are set and whites are cooked. Serve hot!

I recently reconnected with my stepbrother after a number of years. The first thing he told me (not kidding!) was that in all the years since we’d seen each other he had yet to find a salsa that measured up to mine. A proud moment for me as a big sister, a cook, and a salsa lover. 🙂

And he’s not wrong. Not to toot my own horn (okay, maybe a little), but this stuff is pretty awesome.

You can make this chunky by just pulsing in a food processor, or smoother by using a blender. For this batch, I used the blender. During the height of tomato season I use fresh tomatoes, but most of the year canned tomatoes work just fine. I especially like the newish “fire-roasted” diced tomato variety, for a little extra smoky flavor. You can also roast the veggies before throwing them in for an extra smoky finish as well.

In a blender or food processor, add onion, jalapeno, garlic, tomatillos, lime juice and cilantro. Pulse or puree (pulse for chunkier texture, puree for smoother salsa). Scrape down sides and add tomatoes, salt and cumin. Pulse to combine. Check texture and blend more if you’d like it smoother. Taste for seasoning and adjust if needed.

Makes about 2 cups. Store in an airtight container. This will keep in the fridge for 2-3 weeks (if it lasts that long!).

Just when I thought I had used up all my shredded pork, a gift came in the form of a gallon bag of shredded smoked pork from my uncle. Not one to look a gift pig in the mouth, I divided it into a few containers and stuck it in the freezer to be doled out to my family at a later date. Of course I had to cook some of it right away. And it tastes amazing! If you aren’t lucky enough to have people giving you pork, you can use leftovers from my basic pork roast recipe, or simply throw in a small pork roast or some chops. Since this is a crock pot recipe they will cook up just fine over the course of the day.

When I went to school in Denver, I discovered the best Mexican food I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating. The general thinking there is to smother just about everything in green chili. And I am okay with that! And if you don’t feel like eating it over the top of a burrito, a nice bowl of it works just fine. As opposed to most other places I’ve lived, in that style of cooking the green sauce is more spicy; the red sauce is the mild stuff. I didn’t have a recipe for green chili, so I just winged it and was very pleased with the results! Since we were planning to eat this as a soup/stew, I made this version chunkier than I remember, and added some black beans. Not that that will stop me from using the leftovers to smother something – like a breakfast burrito! Serve with rice and warm tortillas.

Seed peppers. You can do this to the small ones by cutting of the top, turning upside down and rolling between your hands or shaking out the seeds. Or you can cut them in half and remove the seeds that way.

All ready to roast.

Lay out on a baking sheet and broil for 4-5 minutes per side until skin is blackened.

Leave them in there until the skin is nice and black. It will peel right off once it is cool.

Place in a paper or plastic bag to steam and cool. When cool enough to handle, remove skins and coarsely chop peppers.

Add all ingredients to crock pot. Turn on high for a 2-3 hours, then turn down to low and cook until dinner time. Taste and adjust seasonings if needed.

* If you don’t have a bunch of leftover shredded pork in your freezer, feel free to use a small pork roast, or pork chops. Just put the meat on the bottom of the crock pot and pile everything else on top. At the end of the day, take a couple of forks and pull the meat apart into shreds or chunks and remove any bones before serving.

Casseroles are and probably have always been the best dumping ground for leftovers. Way back in caveman days I can only imagine the cave-wife saying “what the heck am I going to do with all this leftover mammoth?” And then she thought, “I’ll mix it with these weeds and seeds, stick it in a bowl, cook it in the fire and call it good.”

I finally used the last of my giant pork roast and this was arguably my favorite recipe of them all. I’m not a huge casserole lover, but occasionally it’s just the most satisfying and comforting thing. This one tastes like enchiladas, without all the work of actually making enchiladas. The sauce is a very quick blender affair, and the casserole comes together in a jiffy. Nice weekday meal that will seem like you slaved over it (even if you didn’t).

Queso fresco is a Mexican style white cheese similar to mozzarella. It’s very mild and delicious and melts beautifully! Rather than shredding it you can just crumble it apart in your fingers. Great on anything from tacos to salads.

Preheat oven to 375˚. Remove husks and stems from tomatillos and put in a small saucepan. Cover with water; boil for 10 minutes or until tender. Drain and transfer to a blender with the rest of the sauce ingredients. Blend until smooth.

In the bottom of your casserole dish, ladle enough sauce to liberally cover the bottom of the dish. Lay out tortillas in a single layer and top with pork mixture.

Building your casserole, just repeat from here.

Repeat layers of tortillas and pork until ingredients are used up. End with tortillas on top.

I like to finish with the tortillas on top and then pour sauce over the whole thing.

Pour verde sauce over the whole thing (you may not use all your sauce – you can serve extra on the side, keep it for something else or freeze it for later). Sprinkle queso fresco and tomatoes over the top and finish with a sprinkle of cheddar.

All ready to pop in the oven. So pretty!

Bake for 30 minutes or so until heated through and melty.

All cozy in a bowl. I served this with a black bean and veggie salad on the side.